


Hole in My Soul

by minionofmoo



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Romance, Songfic, smut maybe?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 09:47:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4258740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minionofmoo/pseuds/minionofmoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After recruiting Kaidan back onto the Normandy, Shepard has no idea where she stands in her relationship with the biotic. A message from Kasumi helps nudge her in the right direction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hole in My Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Bioware owns Mass Effect, I'm just playing in their sandbox. The song lyrics are from "Hole in My Soul" by Apocalyptica and do not belong to me.

Tessa Shepard stared at the clock on her omni-tool for a minute before cradling her head in her hand. She had promised herself that she would get a decent night’s sleep that night. But after dealing with a number of urgent issues and then sorting out the various Alliance and Council reports, she realized that at almost 3 a.m. that promise was almost as good as broken. She had never been one to exaggerate, but she was beginning to believe that the data pads were breeding when she left her cabin, given how often she returned and found at least a dozen or more new ones left on her desk.

Slowly sliding away from her desk, Shepard moved to the more open area of her quarters next to her aquarium. She tossed down her rubber exercise mat, and began moving through the yoga poses she knew that would relax her muscles and stretch her back after having sat for so very long. If she could work the kinks out of her neck and legs maybe it wouldn’t take as long for her mind to calm down and allow her to get at least some sleep. 

Shepard moved into her first pose as she began to contemplate as to why she hadn’t been sleeping. First there was the war, of course, which created a seemingly endless number of tasks that needed to be completed for the effort. Then there were the nightmares. If the burning child wasn’t enough to rouse her from her sleep, memories of Mindoir, dying over Alchera, the horrors of the Collector base and the events leading up to the destruction of Bahak system were always classic fall backs for her psyche to torture her with during her rest. Throw in the hours she spent lying awake thinking about a certain Major who had found his way back onto the Normandy in the not so distant past, and cause of the dark circles under her eyes was as clear as crystal. Shepard groaned and shifted poses.

Kaidan Alenko. Kaidan’s presence had caused a veritable rollercoaster of emotions ever since she saw him at Alliance Headquarters before the Reapers hit Vancouver. At the beginning, during their hunt for Saren, she had honestly began to think that something as clichéd as love at first sight and finding “The One” could actually be real. That maybe it wasn’t something that just happened in the vids. Then there was Horizon, followed by his piss-poor attempt at an apology through email. No matter how many times Shepard tried to analyze it, look at it from his point of view, shake it off and forget about it, that regardless of who was right or wrong it had wounded her to the core. Her heart ached at the thought that the man who she had believed was possibly her soul mate couldn’t just be happy at the fact that she was alive when she really shouldn’t be.

He had so openly questioned her loyalties - to the point where James had to step in and vouch for her no less - back on Mars, pulled a gun on her during Cerberus’ coup for the Citadel, and hadn’t said a bloody peep about where they stood in their relationship and whether or not he was interested in rekindling it. Given all that, her first instinct would have been to write him off for good and not look back. But on the other hand he had apologized for doubting her and wanted to clear the air, admitted that he liked her and that they were good together while taking her hand in his, trusted her enough to shoot Udina dead, and used the word “love” and not in the past tense when he spoke of their armed stand off. It was all so confusing. Trying to sort out Kaidan’s hot and cold tendencies made her mind spin.

A sign. That’s all she needed. Something that she could latch onto and reassure her that if she proceeded she wouldn’t be apt to fall on her face and potentially irrevocably screw up her relationship with the one person in the galaxy she wished she still had a shot with. How long could she keep up the holding pattern they had fallen into?

Minutes after she had started her routine, her attention was drawn by what sounded like a wind chime from her terminal. Most messages were delivered silently to her inbox, but for those that were priority and those that came from her team, past and present, each had their own notification sound. While Hackett’s fanfare was a frequent noise in her cabin, the delicate and soothing sound of Kasumi’s wind chimes was a somewhat rare occurrence.

Smiling, Shepard made her way to the terminal to investigate. She knew the master thief was already enjoying herself working on the Crucible, and if there was something that the self-proclaimed kleptomaniac needed Shepard would add it to her laundry list of tasks or errands in a heartbeat. Shepard secretly had hoped that Kasumi had changed her mind about joining the squad. She had always gotten along with the thief even if Kasumi sometimes spooked the shit out of her when she disengaged the tactical cloak right next to her.

Opening the message, all Shepard saw was an attached video along with the words:

_Hey Shepard,_

_Thought you’d find this interesting. ;D_

_KG_

Shepard raised an eyebrow at the brief message. She didn’t peg Kasumi as one who would send her anything trivial (especially with winky emoticons) – unlike Grunt who would still sometimes send links to videos of “awesome” shark attacks – so she clicked on the attachment and leaned back while the video loaded. 

The first few seconds revealed what appeared to be a rather large group of Alliance marines on shore leave; socializing, drinking and having a great time making use of the karaoke set up at a club. One of the revellers must have been recording the events with their omni-tool, probably as a means to remind their squad mates how awful they sounded singing “Sweet Child o’ Mine” while completely shitfaced drunk. She didn’t recognize any of the faces, and wondered how Kasumi got a hold of it in the first place. Shepard briefly contemplated whether she should ask Kasumi how she got the vid just in case there was a member of the Alliance that wasn’t taking care of their sensitive files. “Loose lips sink ships” had been a popular saying during the Second World War on Earth back in the 20th century and some of the same rules still applied. Dismissing the thought, Shepard decided that unless the video contained anything that wasn’t too sensitive in nature she would let it go. No point in causing trouble for something so trivial. Not when they had some much, much bigger squid-shaped fish to fry. Plus there was the grim possibility that the originator was no longer alive, one of countless casualties in the fight against the Reapers.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary after the first minute in, but Shepard’s attention perked up when the officers on screen began looking shocked and started whispering:

“Oh my God, I can’t believe it, they got him to go up?! He’s actually going to fucking do it?! He was adamant that he wouldn’t go up.”

“I dunno he might be drunk enough.”

“I think it’s because Burrows beat him at poker. Loser has to sing. That’ll teach the Commander to play for anything other than credits. Plus he probably is drunk. I know I would need to be to get up there.”

The camera shifted towards the stage and Shepard felt herself freeze when she realized who stepping up to the microphone. Fuck…Kaidan.

Part of her wanted to turn the video off believing that she would be invading Kaidan’s privacy if she watched what could very possibly be an embarrassing situation. If it had been her in that position she would have wanted to incinerate every single omni-tool in the room on the off chance that it was recording. What if it was so terrible she couldn’t look at him with a straight face after? What if he found out she knew about the video?

The other part couldn’t take her eyes off of the handsome man as he laughed at the catcalls and hollering from the other soldiers. He was smiling and pinching the bridge of his nose, all signs that he was nervous, but his demeanour changed when the first few beats of the song started. His smile faded, yet he calmly grasped the mic and started singing with ease.

Shepard’s jaw dropped. Kaidan could sing. Really well, in fact. Well enough that the other officers had gone silent apart from the whispers of “Holy shit”, “You sure he’s not faking it?”, and “Screw the Alliance, he could probably go pro and make a fortune.”

She couldn’t stop now. Shepard just stared mesmerized at the sight of Kaidan on the screen, listening to his smooth tenor amidst the accompanying cello and drums. The song wasn’t familiar to her, but it must have been one of Kaidan’s favourites or one he knew really well given how he seemed to never look at the prompter screen. His eyes were either closed or half-lidded and focused on the floor.

When the initial shock had worn off, Shepard closed her own eyes and simply listened, focusing on the lyrics. That in turn caused her stomach to jump into her throat by the end of the first chorus, and she replayed it to make sure she heard what she thought she had heard.

_I’ve got a hole in my soul where you used to be_  
_There’s a thorn in my heart and it’s killing me_  
_I wish I could go back and do it all differently_  
_Cause now there’s a hole in my soul where you used to be_

Hallucinating, she had to be hallucinating from lack of sleep. That or she was looking into this WAY too deeply and she was completely off base with her assumptions. Kaidan wouldn’t sing a song that could apply to their relationship – or lack of one – in front of a crowd. She had to be thinking about this too hard. 

The rest of the song was much along the same line, seemingly about regret of a lost relationship. While he had masked it pretty well, Shepard felt her chest constrict at the look of loss in she could see in Kaidan’s face. Part of her felt torn, giddy hoping that it was for her and that he did still care, yet at the same time not wanting to be the cause of this pain. At the conclusion of the song, the applause roared for a second before the video cut out. 

Shepard sat in silence before regaining her senses and moved into action. Checking into the vid’s stats would be the first step. When was it made? This was probably filmed after she had died, before he knew she was alive. Has it been altered? Could it be a trick? 

It didn’t take long to determine that the vid had not been embellished and it had been recorded three months after Horizon and about month after the email arrived in her inbox. Shepard leaned back in her chair contemplating the discovery. 

She had asked for a sign. Was this it? It likely had nothing to do with her. Maybe he just liked that particular song. Or maybe it was in relation to the doctor he had mentioned he had gone out for drinks with before her resurrection. Re-watching it a few more times lead her to believe that it wasn’t her mind playing tricks on her. There was strong emotion behind the performance and it had to be in relation to somebody. But was that somebody her? She rested her head against her keyboard for a minute letting the new development sink in.

Sitting up, Shepard hit reply on Kasumi’s message.

_Thanks for the vid. Definitely interesting. Not a word to **anyone** please._

_Take care,_

_Shepard_

The reply was almost instant:

 _Wouldn’t think of it._

_Sweet dreams Shep._

_KG_

Yeah right, like she could really sleep after that. The only thing she would be doing until her shift started would be replaying the clip in her head over and over, trying to tease any new meanings from it or if there was a way she could use it to get Alenko to react. 

A smile crept across her face as she contemplated what this information could mean. If she played her cards right, there was a chance that she could be very highly indebted to her Japanese friend.


End file.
